D&D 5E Two Minor House Rules for Rangers and Druids

[Stormonu]

A change I’ve strongly considered is changing the Battlemaster’s 3rd level ability - Read Enemy, and make it an ability to refresh a small number of Superiority dice.

I allow all PCs to make Nature/History/Arcana/Religion/Insight checks to learn information about opponents, so this is a redundant ability in my game, and I like the added versatility to the fighter’s repertoire that goes beyond simply attempting to deplete hit points.

 

[cbwjm]

The PC game Solasta: crown of the magister does something similar for the ranger, you deal additional damage to your favoured enemy equal to your knowledge level. Knowledge level in this case is unique to the game as when you encounter creatures you have a chance using a survival check to increase your knowledge about them. I think there are 3 knowledge levels so at most a +3 damage bonus.

I'm not sure about half your level as a damage bonus, I'd be tempted to use proficiency bonus unless you're concerned about multiclassing in which case your way at least ensures that only someone focused on being a ranger is getting a significant bonus.

With the wording, I don't think you need to mention that the damage isn't multiplied on a critical hit, that's already written into the game for crits as it is only damage dice that are doubled, and you've already mentioned that it needs to be damage dealt with a weapon so you probably also don't need to bring up spells and other abilities.

The druid change is nice and simple, I like it.

Side note with regard to favoured enemy, I'm tempted to change the humanoid choice to be just a single choice, humanoid, and leave it at that rather than requiring the ranger character to select two types of humanoids to gain the bonus.

 

[el-remmen]

The PC game Solasta: crown of the magister does something similar for the ranger, you deal additional damage to your favoured enemy equal to your knowledge level. Knowledge level in this case is unique to the game as when you encounter creatures you have a chance using a survival check to increase your knowledge about them. I think there are 3 knowledge levels so at most a +3 damage bonus.

I'm not sure about half your level as a damage bonus, I'd be tempted to use proficiency bonus unless you're concerned about multiclassing in which case your way at least ensures that only someone focused on being a ranger is getting a significant bonus.

With the wording, I don't think you need to mention that the damage isn't multiplied on a critical hit, that's already written into the game for crits as it is only damage dice that are doubled, and you've already mentioned that it needs to be damage dealt with a weapon so you probably also don't need to bring up spells and other abilities.

The druid change is nice and simple, I like it.

Side note with regard to favoured enemy, I'm tempted to change the humanoid choice to be just a single choice, humanoid, and leave it at that rather than requiring the ranger character to select two types of humanoids to gain the bonus.

The prof bonus is an interesting idea, since that caps at +6, which is fine. I may use that.

I also may use your humanoid suggestion. Thanks!